I am not much of a traveller. The best vacation for me is at home. But when I do go and to places like Paris, I would like to remember as much of it as I can. So I do resolve to come back and write about it to be able to read and relive it later, but you know how resolutions go. Still, a little later is better than never. Here then are some photos, and some descriptions in the first of a 2-3 part series on my visit to Paris.
Paris was a very pleasant vacation; the weather was superb, a little on the nippy side (we all had to go buy coats, and it’s summer), but still nice. We stayed at a hotel which was about a 5 minute walk to the Louvre Museum, so pretty much in the thick of things, with easy access to the Metro. We paid what seemed to be a fortune per night, because this was a large room which accomodated 4 people. Most Paris hotel rooms are tiny, and will accomodate only 2 people (and that I’m told barely) – so lodging-wise not so family-friendly.
If you are at the Louvre you are in the 1st arrondisement of Paris, an arrondisement being sort of like a little district or a municipal ward, for governing purposes. Arrondisements in Paris are laid out in a spiral, the 1st being the very center, and the rest lying outwards along the spiral. So if you happen to be in Arrondisement 20 , you are on the periphery of the city. The river Seine cuts the city into two banks the top Right Bank and bottom Left Bank. The Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Tuileries, and the Concorde all lie on the Right Bank while the Pantheon, the Eiffel Tower and the Gardens of Luxemborg lie on the Left. Notre Dame lies sort of in the middle of the banks on a little island.
Paris has a quaint feel, with it’s cobbled streets and it’s cyclists and pedestrians. There are cars too, but they are small and very compact – I didn’t see any large Land Cruiser types. We traveled by the Metro and also walked a lot, stopping intermittently to eat and drink. Paris was full of historic architecture – even the apartments lining the streets, had great wrought iron work, and curving roofs. Everything looked historic. Sort of the way I feel in Connaught place in Delhi. Now Delhi is so beautiful too; if only it were better maintained.
Paris and Delhi have other similarities too – the Arc de Triomphe is not unalike India Gate, and they are both are laid at the center of a grid of roads. The photograph below was taken very close to sunset, and appears dark, but not knowing whether I would have time to come back some morning to get a better shot, I took it anyway.
We were pretty eager to see the Eiffel Tower, and my first thought as it came into view was that it was humongous. In fact viewing it from across the river later, from the Trocadero Place, it dwarfed the city around it, seeming almost like someone had placed a giant monument onto a land of little people.
